“Me thanks for yer praise,” Belexus replied. “But others’ll be putting their names on the same parchments.”
“Not to doubt,” laughed the King. “Already we have heard tales of valor echoing from across the river, carried under the cover of night by stragglers. One group came in just this morn, farther to the south. Mere children—warriors of necessity. They crossed to warn us of the continued gathering of the army of our enemies. And with them they brought a woman and her two young children who had been captives of the talons, and were alive now only because of the heroic efforts of yet another lad who remains across the way.”
“How many do ye still put across on the talon side?” asked Andovar.
“Not to know,” replied Benador. “They drift in every night, and logic tells me that dozens of others will not survive to cross for every one that does. For all of those who do manage to make it across to safety inevitably have tales dark and bold to tell of their desperate escape from the occupied land, tales of friends who appeared to aid in their cause, or of strangers who rescued them from the very clutches of talon scum.”
He took a wide survey of his own forces, then across the way to the wide, flat plain of the western fields.
“So many heroes will emerge from this,” the King said, his voice plainly edged in sorrow.
“Too many,” Belexus agreed sadly. He remembered Meriwindle, the noble elf he had met briefly in Corning, centuries old but with centuries yet before him in his long-lived life.
Except for the intrusion by the Black Warlock.
“And how many will be needed?” Belexus asked, speaking as much to the mourn of the wind as to his companions. “What toll o’ death and terror will appease the likes o’ Morgan Thalasi? Or does the foul wizard never plan to take his beasts back to their dark holes; will we have to fight them every inch?” Belexus looked back at his friends.
“Too many heroes,” he whispered. “Too many dead heroes.”
Chapter 14
Showdown
BRIELLE DRIFTED THROUGH the afternoon mist of Avalon, floating like a ghost in her woodland domain. Bone weary from her battles against the storms of the Black Warlock, the fair witch knew that many days would probably pass before she was allowed any true rest. For she and Istaahl, and Ardaz whenever he returned, were the only known guardians in all the world against the workings of Morgan Thalasi. Ever vigilant they had to be, for without their countering enchantments, the Black Warlock could sweep down great numbers of Calvan soldiers with ease.
They had been lucky so far, for the valor of Andovar and his heroic ride and the good sense of her own daughter had foretold the coming of Thalasi early on in the conflict. And only the appearance of the Black Warlock himself even tied Brielle to the war. Without that link, the earth-staining perversion that was the Black Warlock, Brielle would have found little powers at her disposal in the battle at the Four Bridges. Hers was a magic of the earth, a sentinel’s role of guarding her secluded domain against any uninvited intrusion; and beyond her domain, the borders of Avalon, the Emerald Witch would have had little influence or purpose fighting in a war between men and talons.
Now, however, Brielle found herself wholeheartedly in the middle of it, the earth providing her with all of the power she could contain in her efforts against the unnatural perversion that was Morgan Thalasi.
She moved to a small clearing, and to the hollowed stump of a tree in its midst, its bole filled with water from the last rain. Reflections from a dozen stars dotted the still black surface, but with a simple chant and a wave of her hand, Brielle dismissed them and brought up the image of Istaahl’s room in their stead.
The White Mage of Pallendara accepted the intrusion readily; he had been sitting before his crystal ball awaiting Brielle’s call.
“You have held out against the insinuations of Thalasi,” Istaahl said to her. “His attacks against my tower were lesser yesterday, and have come not at all since. I feared that he had sent the whole of his wrath against you.”
“Nay, his attacks against me wood came weaker, too,” Brielle replied. “And not a rumble this day. It seems that the dark one has his limitations.”
“And a good thing he does,” said Istaahl, straining to show a smile. “I have not worked so hard in many, many years. I do not know how I would have fared if Thalasi had come on again with the same fury as his first attack.
“But I do not trust his show of weakening,” Istaahl went on. “I fear that the Black Warlock may recover quickly, and that only the magic I have set in my tower walls will hold the strength to keep him back. In my heart, my place is on the battlefield beside my king, yet I fear to leave the White Tower lest neither it nor myself could stand alone against the Black Warlock.”
Brielle, with her daughter somewhere down on the ravaged plain, understood Istaahl’s torment, for she, too, wished but feared to leave her domain. Again risen from an apparent grave, this new embodiment of Thalasi was too much of an unknown factor; Brielle couldn’t risk separation from the forest that gave her strength. “Have ye noticed something strange in his attacks?” she asked. “Shifts in the power and the like?”
“I have,” Istaahl was quick to agree. “As if his attacks were guided alternately by different hands.”
“Mighten be a waver as he shifts his concentration back from yer tower to me wood,” Brielle reasoned logically. But she suspected something different—though she had no idea of what. “Suren a dark day on the world when that one came out o’ his hole.”
“And a dark way ahead,” Istaahl added. “The Black Warlock will not be one so easily put back into his hole. Have you located Ardaz yet?”
“Nay, that one’s off on a hunt and not to be looking back this way for many weeks. I’ve spies about, and suren he’s soon to feel the rumble o’ the magic war.”
“Still,” said Istaahl, “the sooner the Silver Mage returns, the better off we all shall be. Thalasi holds us even, though he has not, at least to my knowledge, flexed his magical muscles in many years. I fear that he may gain a bit of an edge with practice.”
“Not to worry,” Brielle replied. “Ever has me brother been the last to arrive, but ne’er once has he been too late for the game.
“I’m for going now to me rest,” Brielle went on. “The onset o’ the night might bring a new trick or two from the dark one, and already the sun’s sittin’ low in the west.”
“Agreed,” said Istaahl. “And if an attack does come to you with renewed fury, call on me for aid. I am weary, but I’ll fight for beautiful Avalon to the last of my breath!”
“Me thanks,” said Brielle. “But fear not. Morgan Thalasi’ll have to be showin’ much more than he has thus far to truly bring harm to me wood.”
Istaahl, of course, knew the truth of the witch’s words. If the Black Warlock managed to conquer all of Calva, and all of the world surrounding Avalon, the enchanted forest would still stand untainted. And the effort Thalasi would need to conquer that last shining island would be tenfold his exertions in bringing the rest of the world under his dark fold. For in her domain, in the forest that was the extension of the purity of her magic, Brielle was the mightiest of the four wizards.
“Farewell, then,” the White Mage said as his image faded from Brielle’s divining pool. “And fight well.”
“And to yerself,” Brielle replied, and then she moved away from the small clearing, seeking a hillock that would show her the sunset beyond the western plains.
Rhiannon labored all through the afternoon tending to those freshly wounded in the day’s skirmishes and those still healing from the days before. With each soothing charm the young witch grew more at ease with the magical energy flowing through her body. Its course ran smooth and straight, hardly disrupting the normal rhythms of Rhiannon’s own life force.
But whenever Rhiannon’s thoughts turned dark, to the gorge she had carved into the plain or to the bloody battles on the bridges, the magic fluctuated and burned, threatening to overwhelm her in
a pit of possession so very deep that she doubted she could ever climb out.
Around her there remained enough blatant, brutal suffering for Rhiannon to ignore those dark urges, though, and concentrate on her healing.
* * *
More than a hundred miles to the north, Brielle sent her perceptions into the untainted soil of Avalon and sensed the subtle vibrations of her daughter’s work. She feared for Rhiannon, though she trusted implicitly in the young woman’s good sense and resourcefulness.
Brielle hoped that only she, so attuned to the emanations of Rhiannon, could feel the budding power in the young witch; certainly Thalasi would be quick to strike if he learned that yet another magic-user was growing to power against him.
The vibrations from Rhiannon’s magic rang stronger to Brielle this day, clearer and purer, and the Emerald Witch was pleased that Rhiannon would soon come into her full strength. But the elder witch knew, too, the pain that inevitably accompanied the acquisition of such power. She wanted to fly out right then to the south and scoop Rhiannon up in her protective arms, but she had to trust her daughter, now a young woman and no more a girl. If Rhiannon wanted, or needed, to come home, she would. And if she did not return to Avalon, Brielle had to assume that some more important duty kept her away.
Then a wicked jolt rocked Brielle back on her heels, a discordant twanging in the song of the earth that brutally reminded her of her own duties. Only Morgan Thalasi could disrupt the earth song so wickedly, and either the Black Warlock’s power had grown exponentially during the course of the day …
… or he was very close.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” the Black Warlock hissed, a taunt from a child’s game of another world. He stood now, confident and arrogant, on the western border of Avalon. Seeing no answer to his call forthcoming, he sent another searing line of fire into the thick boughs, and the flames leaped higher into the evening sky.
“Oh, do come out and play, Brielle!” he shouted, his tone a mocking whine. “I do so hate to play all by myse—”
A blast of wind exploded out of the forest, smothering the Black Warlock’s flames in the blink of an eye and slamming into Thalasi’s skinny frame with the force of a hurricane. His cloak whipped out behind him, the folds in his shirt and pants buffeted and tore. But the Black Warlock only smiled and casually held his ground.
And then Brielle appeared on the edge of her domain, surrealistically limned by the first twinklings of the evening’s starlight. Even Thalasi had to pause and gape in the face of the stark power of the Emerald Witch, so beautiful and terrible all at once.
“Get ye gone!” Brielle commanded, and Thalasi almost obeyed in spite of himself.
“Pitiful,” he snorted instead, masking his initial awe. “I have come to visit; is this how you welcome guests?”
The curious dual tone of the Black Warlock’s voice surprised Brielle. “Ye gave up yer right to be calling yerself me guest many centuries ago, Morgan Thalasi,” she retorted. She looked curiously at her enemy, wearing the body of Martin Reinheiser. “If that’s who ye truly be. And now ye come to me, wrapped in a new coil but smellin’ no less foul.”
“Morgan Thalasi,” the Black Warlock echoed, dipping into a low bow. “That is indeed who we be.”
“Then ye’ve possessed yer lackey,” Brielle laughed. “And have ye let Martin Reinheiser remain within, or have ye kicked him out?”
Sudden rage sent a tremble through the Black Warlock’s face, as Brielle had suspected: the two spirits were not as completely aligned as Thalasi would have hoped.
“Reinheiser is in here,” the Black Warlock began, “and he is not. There is only we, two together in one.”
“Two smells for a single stench,” the witch mocked.
“Impudent!” Thalasi roared, his bony hands clenching his sides. He composed himself quickly, though, knowing that a calm attitude would be necessary in dealing with Brielle so very near her domain.
“Why have ye come out?” Brielle asked him earnestly. “What do ye hope to be gaining? Suren ye’ll kill thousands o’ men and talons alike, to yer pleasure. But suren ye’ll be driven back as e’er before.”
“Not this time,” Thalasi countered, his voice a hiss, his eyes angry dots of simmering fire. “I … we are stronger now, Jennifer Glendower. The time has come for Morgan Thalasi to claim the world that is rightfully his.”
“Never it is!” Brielle snapped back, equally enraged. “Twice before ye’ve made the claim; twice before ye’ve been sent slinking back under yer rock.”
“Third time is the charm,” Thalasi purred. “This time I will get that which I deserve.”
“Ye’ve long ago been given more than ye deserve,” Brielle countered. “Blessings o’ the Colonnae upon ye, but did ye put them to rightful use? No, not a one such as yerself! Ye turn the powers for whatever’s pleasin’ yer whims and with not a care for those around ye.”
Rage bubbled inside the hollowed sockets of Thalasi’s black eyes. Again his bony hands shook and clenched.
“If ye truly are to get what ye deserve, Morgan Thalasi,” Brielle continued, undaunted by the growing volcano that was her enemy, “then me thinking’s that ye should be feeling terror.”
“You puny …” Thalasi stammered, barely able to spit out the words. “You are nothing more than a sentry, a guardian for powers you cannot begin to understand. You dare to taunt me? Look upon me, Jennifer Glendower. Look upon the godlike being that is the Black Warlock!”
Brielle’s answer, an overripened apple, splatted into Thalasi’s face.
His roar bent the mightiest oaks and sent Brielle’s golden hair standing out straight behind her. She squinted through the blast to see the Black Warlock polymorph, bending and stretching his form to gigantic proportions.
A dragon.
His inhale sent the trees back over the other way, and the return blast of his breath came out in an explosion of searing fire.
But Brielle was ready for such an obvious attack. She threw her hands out in front of her and called upon the element of water. A geyser erupted from her fingertips, meeting the dragon breath halfway between the combatants in a snarling hiss of harmless steam. Still Thalasi breathed his fire, and still Brielle’s water gushed forth to beat it back.
Even dragons run out of breath.
He was Thalasi again, in human form, soaking wet and with wisps of steam trailing out of his nose and mouth. “You have survived only the first round,” he promised, and he clapped his hands together, sending a shower of sparks flying into the night air about him.
Feeling the sudden collection of his power, Brielle burst into her own somatic gestures, waving her arms in a circular motion in front of her.
Thalasi’s lightning bolt thundered in, but Brielle’s conjured mirror blocked its path and sent it back toward its caster.
As soon as he loosed the bolt, Thalasi had set up a defensive pattern of his own, and the lightning bolt found yet another enchanted mirror blocking its path. It ricocheted back and forth between the two magic users, seeming no more than a singular cracking light until its energy dissipated in a shower of harmless sparks.
Blind anger launched Thalasi’s next attack; if he had taken the time to think, he never would have used this particular method. A black vine lined with rows of cruel thorns dripping poison rocketed out of the ground and rolled out menacingly toward Brielle.
The witch laughed and snapped her fingers in response to the spell. “Ye mean to use me own earth against me?” she asked incredulously. The vine still came on, but Brielle accepted it.
For soft flowers now bloomed where the thorns had been, and the stem’s sickly color now showed bright in vibrant green. It encircled the witch, a triumphant wreath.
And now it was Brielle’s turn to attack. She lifted her hands into the air, and the grass around the Black Warlock responded by growing to the height of the man, each blade reaching in to entwine him with razorlike edges.
“Damn you!” Thala
si roared, and a ring of fire started around his feet and swept out in a wide arc, destroying Brielle’s grass.
Brielle struck again even before her enemy’s fires had completed their work. She pointed a single finger at the ground under Thalasi’s feet and spoke a word of doom. The hard ground became mud, and the Black Warlock dropped in and disappeared from sight.
Brielle replaced her finger with a clenched fist, and the ground returned to its previous solid state. Then the witch waited cautiously. She may have humiliated the Black Warlock, but she did not believe for a minute that her simple trick had destroyed him.
A rumble under her feet confirmed her belief.
The ground exploded into man-sized divots, and Thalasi, a dragon once again, roared up into the air. His fiery breath came on, its fury tenfold. But again Brielle met it with a thick and unrelenting spray of water.
And so it went, back and forth for many minutes, each magic-user assuming various forms or manipulating the environment to strike out, and the other inevitably countering with appropriate and cunning defensive actions.
And then they were both in their human forms again, facing each other and gasping too hard for breath even to shout out further insults. Thalasi slammed his bony hands together, and the lightning crackled and built.
Brielle put up her mirror in time, and Thalasi created his before the bolt came thundering back. But this time neither would let the charge dissipate. It was time, they both understood, to finally determine who was stronger. Brielle added a second bolt to the dizzying volley, Thalasi a third. Back and forth the lightning crackled, every circuit exacting a toll upon each of the defensive shields.
Brielle stood resolute, drawing on Avalon for further power. Thalasi, though, so far from Talas-dun, his bastion of strength, eventually began to weaken. The witch recognized the waver in his defensive field, and she added yet another blast on the very next rebound.